


Phone Home

by alicat54c



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, M/M, Sterek Secret Santa 2018, Texting, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 12:23:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17161922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicat54c/pseuds/alicat54c
Summary: Sterek secret santa for nevermoree-tr and nevermore-the-raven, who asked for: text messages and time travel, and alive Hales. Probably not what you had in mind, but I hope you like it.…/Who are you?/ Derek texted. /How do you know all this stuff?/There was a pause of about a minute, Derek watched the clock on his screen change, before 404 replied.//Technomage from the future.///That's  not a thing/, was Derek’s immediate reply, or, rather, as immediate as one could be when clicking through letter options on his keypad.//Says the werewolf.//





	Phone Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nevermore-the-raven](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=nevermore-the-raven).



…

/who are you?/ Derek texted. /how do you know all this stuff?/

There was a pause of about a minute, Derek watched the clock on his screen change, before 404 replied.

//Technomage from the future.//

/thats not a thing,/ was Derek’s immediate reply, or, rather, as immediate as one could be when clicking through letter options on his keypad.

//Says the werewolf.//

Ice cascaded down Derek’s spine. 

/how do you know about that/ he typed, hoping the frantic punching of his fingers didn’t crack the buttons of the phone’s keypad.

//The same way I know everything. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. // 404 sent another message before Derek had time to puzzle that unhelpful statement out. //You’ll get that reference in the future.//

Derek scowled at the screen. /say i believe you why me are you texting me?/

//The future is in danger, Derek. And I’m our only hope.//

Another pause between texts, in which Derek has to forcibly lock the muscles of his hand, lest the fragile plastic in his hand shatter. 

//You did get that reference, right?//

…

The first text came after class, the day he had finally planned to ask Paige if she would go out with him to the winter formal.

//Mom wants you home right now, better hurry.//

The tone rang irritatingly in his sister’s tone, so Derek didn’t bother to check whether Laura was actually the sender. He had only had the phone for less than a week, so who else would be texting him?

With a final glance back at Paige, laughing against her locker with her ensemble friends, Derek hitched his bag further up over his shoulder, and made for the bike racks.

When he finally made it home, out of breath, wondering why he was in trouble, it was to find his mother pulling a sheet of cookies out of the oven. Her brows rose as he fidgeted in the doorway of the kitchen, exuding anxiety.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Derek?” she said, hands migrating to her hips in a practiced stance.

He clutched the straps of his backpack tightly, bunching his shirt around his shoulders. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it, no matter what Laura says!”

His mother stared down at him. He scuffed the tile floor with his sneakers.

Later that evening, after Talia had taken Laura aside for another lecture about teasing her siblings, Derek took a closer look at the message.

In place of the name of a contact, or a string of ten unknown numbers, was the address Error 404.

Derek scowled, and flipped his phone shut. He wouldn’t put it past Laura to hide any evidence by doing… something so her number wouldn’t show up. Maybe she used a pay phone. Did those even do texts? 

The thought drifted idly in his mind through the next day, when he heard through the rumor mill that Paige had been asked to the dance by Chaz Greenberg.

Unpleasant heartbreak knocked any thought of strange text messages right out of his head.  
…

The next text came the day the new substitute English teacher asked him to stay behind.

/Hunters use sandalwood and rosemary to hide the scent of wolfsbane bullets./

Derek choked on a lungful of air, earthy herbs clogging his nose. Nightmares of lost cousins and bedtime story-warnings of crossbows, of his grandmother’s missing arm where she cut it off to stop black poison reaching her heart, cascaded behind his eyes.

Miss Silver, ‘call me Kate’ , tilted her head, golden hair dripping over her shoulder, revealing her neck, and another puff of rosemary.

“Hey there big guy, you all right there?” Her hand lingered on his arm, and his skin broke out in goosebumps.

“I- just- my, uh, mom.” Derek waved his cell phone in the air as he backed up to the door, lungs burning as he held his breath.

Later, Uncle Peter found him viciously scrubbing the spot where she had touched him. Peter opened his mouth, no doubt to make a cutting joke, but stopped when he noticed how raw the skin of his nephew’s arm was under the suds.

Haltingly, Derek explained the scent of rosemary, the lingering touches, the glances in class. Peter’s face grew more blank with each word, until finally there were no more to say. Derek rubbed at his face, noticing his cheeks and eyes were hot. Peter enveloped the teen in a hug, told him to get a drink (not specifically of water) and walked away.

The next day, Miss Kate Silver was not in class. Rumor had it, a police cruiser escorted her from her first period class, after heroine was found in the trunk of her car.

Derek hunched low in his seat, skin still crawling where she touched. His hand clenched around the flip phone in his pocket.  
…

By the third text, Derek was properly suspicious. He had mentally prepared a litany of replies, should 404 attempt to inconveniently contact him again. None were used when the message finally came.

//The hunters will attack when your family hosts peace talks.//

Derek’s blood curdled, and he found himself at a loss for words, hands shaking too much to hold his phone.

No one was supposed to know about the talks between the hunters and the neighboring pack to the north. Derek wasn’t even supposed to know, but it’s hard to keep a secret in a house full of nosey teenagers with super-hearing. And Derek could never turn down a dare when both Laura and Cora ganged up on him.

He took a deep breath, clenching an unclenching his hands, claws sliding over his fragile human nails several times, until his heart rate slowed enough to keep his hands steady.

/who are you?/ Derek texted. /how do you know all this stuff?/

…

//You did get that reference, right?//

Derek unclenched his hands, letting the phone clatter to the desk while he shook out his wrists. His claws had popped out, gouging a row of neat dents into the wood surface. His phone beeped, alerting his to another incoming message.

//Hello? Sourwolf???//

Deliberately, Derek kept his hands steady as he typed, painstakingly scrolling through the buttons to convey, without distraction, his message. /what do you want/

//To save the future. Didn’t I already say? I just looked back, and I totally already said that.//

/say I believe you. what do you want from me?/

A pause from the usual rapid fire of texts, as if 404 was thinking.

//Ok, so here’s where things get complicated…//  
…

Derek hovered in an alley behind of the Beacon Hills police station, phone clutched in his sweaty hand. His eyes darted from the screen, faintly glowing green in the twilight, to the lighted window two stories above the dumpster, back to his phone.

The bathroom window of the side office has a loose latch. At 7pm, all the officers not on call will leave and lock up the back rooms. Use those wolfy powers to sneak in, all sneaky like.

The light in the window clicked off, and the faint sounds of keys jangling and doors closing touched his ears through the cement walls.

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” Derek hissed, shoving his phone into his pocket. It hung heavy against his thigh.

Backing up a step, Derek sucked in a breath, and took off at a sprint for the wall. Jumping to the edge of the dumpster, he used the momentum to leap up the brick to the window ledge. Sneakers scrabbling against the gritty wall, Derek dug his claws into the crumbling brick ledge, heart in his throat. Heaving himself up by his fingertips, he leaned against the window, praying his elbow wouldn’t slip. 

“If it’s locked, I’ll go home and forget all this,” he told himself between clenched teeth. 

Freeing one hand, he jostled the window.

The latch jiggled and slipped, allowing the sill to slide up an inch.

Not allowing the sinking feeling in his mind to pull him under, Derek levered the window open, just enough to wriggle through. His shoulders scraped both sides, but were narrow enough to allow Derek to slip onto the tiled bathroom floor.

It was a single stall, barely bigger than a closet. Getting to his feet, Derek tried the door. It opened, revealing a dimly lit hallway, breaking off into a series of glass windowed doors, ending in a staircase.

He fished his phone out of his pocket.

//Luckily for you, the spare riot gear is stored on the third floor too. They have never, to my knowledge, changed the password on the locker. Or, at least, they won’t have, yet. Heh. Anyway, it’s the door closest to the stairs on the right. Here’s the combination:XXXXX//

Stepping carefully, Derek crept closer to the head of the stairs. A dull orange light, no doubt a light left on at the secretarial desk, emanated from the floor below, casting the hall with dim grey shadows.

The only door with a combination keypad was, of course, right at the top of the landing.

Derek breathed shallowly, listening for any heartbeats below. For a terror filled instant he imagined he heard a shuffle of footsteps, but it resolved itself into the hummingbird fast body of a mouse scratching the corners of the floor. 

The werewolf wondered how such a creature managed to stay in the police station, when at least three of Derek’s cousins were deputies- not to mention his grandfather still reigning as active sheriff. Usually prey ran from the scent of wolves, but perhaps this mouse was desensitized. 

Shaking off the stray thought, Derek punched the key code into the lock. It clicked, and he slid inside. Racks of bullet proof vests, gas masks, shields, and other gear hung off the walls. A safe in the corner, locked with keys, contained an array of guns, but Derek paid it no mind.

Hand shaking, he shrugged on one of the vests, tightening the straps till it more or less fit snugly around his body. He found an empty duffel bag in the corner, and filled it with the gas masks, a canister of pepper spray, and more vests and odds and ends, until it was difficult to zip closed.

Hoisting the bag over his shoulder, Derek crept from the room. Shutting the door behind him, he scooted across the hall, back to the bathroom window. Maneuvering the bag out before his body was difficult, and he more fell than jumped back to the ground, but Derek was in one piece. And so was his bulging bag of contraband.

His heard began to race, knees wobbling, head light.

His pocket buzzed. Automatically, he reached in and pulled out his phone.

//Good job! Now, you need to get to the warehouse. IDK when the meeting was supposed to be exactly, but it was some time in the morning. So better run Sourwolf!//

/i just robbed the sheriffs station give me a minute/

The answer came fast. 

//Don’t worry, your life of crime gets better.//

/you are not helping/

//Suck it up Lassie.//

Derek could practically hear the snark behind the words. His lips twitched, and he stuffed his phone back into his pocket.

…

/why are you doing this?/

Derek sat on the roof of an abandoned warehouse, watching the sun creep over the horizon. The adrenaline of the night was fading in his veins, prompting the lack of sleep to weigh upon his eyes. He propped his back against the bulging bag in an effort to remain awake, but his eyelids were drooping.

404’s reply was slow, as if they too were dozing.

//I told you, saving the future.//

/but why do you care?/

Why me? Derek didn’t type.

A longer pause.

//A lot of not so good things happen. Most of them start here. You deserve to have good things Derek, and I just happen to be here to help you get them.//

/do you know me in the future?/

//Spoilers! I can’t tell you!//

/well what can you tell me?/

//That you have never, ever, to my knowledge, changed you cell phone number. Hell, I’m pretty sure you still use the same silver flip phone! Hello, put that dumb phone out of its misery! But not yet, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to bend time and space to my bidding and contact you.//

/my phone is not dum./ Derek’s ears flared red as he typed, fingers tapping the silver painted plastic.

//So many lost jokes you won’t understand for years, so little time.//

Derek rolled his eyes. /so if you’re from the future and im changing the future whats going to happen to you?/

Derek tilted his bead back to watch the gibbous moon dip below the roof line of warehouses. Unbidden, his jaw cracked open in a sighing yawn. His phone vibrated.

//I guess it depends on whether we’re using Back to the Future or parallel worlds rules. Either I’ll vanish, or I won’t.//

A complicated emotion of disbelief and tired horror tangled in Derek’s chest.

/is there anything i can do? since you might not exist any more after this?/

//Maybe.//

Then a moment later as a separate message.

//You don’t have to do it or anything, but you could if you wanted to as like a favor or something.//

Derek’s lips twitched upwards at the rambling text. 

/what?/

Another pause, longer this time.

//I’ll tell you when this is all over. Let’s game plan about what you’re going to do. You got the gas masks, right?//

/yes/

//Ok, well the are going to use a vaporizer. Turns the wolfsbane into a mist- harmless to humans, but a wolf will suffocate. It looks like an asthma attack- lungs filling with fluid, that kind of thing. So here’s the game plan…//  
…

Of course, when the time came, none of 404’s game plans ended up being used.

Derek was crouched atop a skylight, straining to look through the dirty glass. Shadowy forms rippled beneath the grime on the warehouse floor, and the werewolf wished he could scent the air to identify friend from foe. Suddenly, a hiss of escaping gas, and the view through the skylight clouded white with vapor.

He read through the plan one more time on his phone. The protective vest restricted access to his pants pocket, so Derek shifted his weight to tuck the phone into the front pocket of his shirt. A heart stopping crack sounded from beneath his feet.

Derek fell through the ceiling in a shower of glass. Several bullets immediately thunked against the back of his vest, and one richoched off the side of his riot helmet, but the gas mask over his face remained in place. Whirling the dufflebag over his shoulder, Derek wrenched out a spare mask, and pushed it onto the face of the nearest werewolf.

The wolf, light hair with red eyes, streaming from the wolfsbane smoke, clutched the breathing apparatus to his face, coughing. Derek darted away before he could see if the man recovered, shouldering a hunter to the floor, before he could check a bullet into the skull of another choking wolf. Too late, the bullet connected, though not as fatally as it could have.

Black lines seeped up the beta’s neck from the bullet wound in the shoulder. Derek cursed, and fumbled in the pockets of the duffle, frantically trying to remember if he had brought a lighter.

“No!” It was the first wolf, the light haired man, the alpha if his blood shot eyes were anything to go by. “No!” The man said again, pulling a lighter out of his own pocket. “Go help the others. We need to breathe!”

Nodding, Derek darted away to another fallen wolf. The hunters seemed to realize something was going on, as a few had moved from shooting the fallen prey to aiming at the new comers.

Derek’s heart raced as another bullet cracked against his riot helmet, sending a spiderweb of cracks across his vision. He ducked down, pulling a final gas mask out of the bag to press to a gasping face.

“D-Derek?” He looked down into the face of his cousin Mike, out of his deputy uniform for the negotiations. Taking a breath through the bask, Mike grabbed Derek by the shoulders and rolled them together away from where a hunter’s shot chipped the cement floor. Another bullet fired, shattering the faceplate of Derek’s helmet.

“You’re in so much trouble when your mother finds out,” the older wolf gasped, voice betraying his relieved tone. He pulled one of the spare vests from the bag, and dragged it over his shoulders. He pulled the dufflebag out of Derek’s grip. “I’ll handle this- you get under cover!”

“But-!” Derek protested, but a growl and flash of blue eyes silenced him. 

Unburdened, Derek army crawled across the floor. Enough werewolves had recovered with gas masks, that the hunters were being pushed back.

“Not so fast, sweetie!” A sickeningly sweet voice chirped. A boot connected with Derek’s ribs, sending him rolling over onto his back.

A woman- no, that old substitute teacher?- smiled at him, lips red, down the length of a shotgun. “Scurrying off with your tail between your legs? Someone ought to put you down.”

Her voice was so cheerful, casual, flirtatious almost, as if she were only discussing the weather over coffee. It made Derek’s skin crawl under the heavy jacket and protective gear. The visor of his helmet was gone, though it wouldn’t provide much protection against a point blank shot.

The hunter cocked her gun, familiar blonde hair flashing through the wolfsbane vapor like the gleam of her honey pot smile. His substitute Kate Silver- and gosh wasn’t Derek an idiot for not noticing it sooner- finger squeezed on the trigger.

A scuffle- the red eyed alpha roaring, knocking back a crowd of bodies- a flailing limb behind blonde hair- a gun shot-

Derek’s lungs seized, vision blurring. His lungs felt full of water.

Another roar answered the first alpha’s, further away but coming closer. Claws tearing though metal doors like paper- triumphant howls.

And Derek knew no more.  
…

A buzz of light fixtures, beeping mechanical heartbeats, antiseptic and bleach, scratchy sheets. Familiar touch of skin against his hand, stroking in time with the other heartbeat in the room.

Derek opened his eyes, too white ceiling of the Beacon Hills Hospital blinding him. He groaned, lids squeezing shut once more.

The stroking paused, and strong fingers squeezed his hand. “Derek, sweetie, you have to wake up now.”

Derek risked tilting his head, and squinting at the person seated at his bedside. “Mom?”

Her eyes were red, though not from any supernatural cause. She sniffed, wiping one hand across her face, before returning it to squeeze at his.

Her voice shook. “The bullet broke the seal of your gas mask, and would have hit your chest if it wasn’t for your phone.”

Derek’s heart lurched. “My phone?”

Hi mother petted a hand through his hair. “Don’t worry sweetie, we’ll buy you another one.”

“But I’ll have the same number and everything, right?”

His mother raised an eyebrow. “Do you have a girlfriend we should be aware of?”

He shook his head fiercely, blush betraying nothing.

She laughed. “The sim card was destroyed, but I’m sure you can give your new friend your number again later. Which reminds me.”

The hand in his hair stilled, and Derek looked up into his mother’s red red eyes.

“You saved a lot of lives with what you did, and we’re going to be talking about exactly what you did, but I want you to know that I’m proud of you, and you are grounded forever.”

…

Derek was, in fact, only grounded until he was thirty.

His punishment seemed to consist mostly of hugs from various pack members, and a standing offer from Deucalion, the alpha he saved from the warehouse, to visit whenever he wanted. Derek’s mother didn’t comment on how the other alpha’s pack treated him as Deucalion’s heir apparent when visiting, though she did make a point to ensure her son spent time with his own family.

That was how Derek found himself volunteering at the local hospital. His great aunt worked there as a nurse, and insisted he should learn the family knack towards healing. 

While heading towards the break room one day, Derek heard a sniffling coming from behind one of the vending machines.

He paused. There, wedged between the soda and snacks, a small figure covered in dust wiped at his eyes.

“Hey are you ok?” Derek asked.

The kid looked up, brown eyes glinting amber through his tears. He wiped a hand across his face, revealing a collection of cheek moles under the grime.

Crouching down, voice lowering to a soft soothing tone, he reached a hand into the space. “Hey, come on out, it’s fine. Let me help you.”

The kid wrinkled his nose, thinking. He sniffed again, and took the werewolf’s hand.

He allowed himself to be pulled out, cheeks still stained with dusty tear tracks.

Casting about through his limited knowledge of what kids liked, Derek floundered. “Um, do you want some hot milk, or something?”

“I’m not a baby, I’m eleven!” A skip in his heart. “Or nearly, anyway…” The kid wiped across his face again. 

“Ok,” Derek soothed, patting dust off the kid’s back. “Can you tell me where your parents are then?”

Fresh tears budded from the kid’s eyes, and his lower lip trembled.

Derek raised his hands to push back the new wave of emotion. “Woah, hey. you’re all right! It’s ok! You’re going to be ok!”

The kid threw himself into Derek’s unguarded embrace, arms wrapping, python like, around the werewolf’s neck. Derek tensed in anticipation of his wolf’s discomfort of a stranger so near his neck, but no surge of adrenaline, no telltale flash of eyes, nothing. 

Sniffling near his shoulder pulled him from further internal investigation. His arms touched feather light against the kid’s back.

“Hey, it’s ok. I’ll help you. My name’s Derek, what’s yours?”

More sniffles, though the scent of salty sadness began to dry, which Derek counted as a win. The kid mumbled something into his neck.

“What was that?”

The kid pulled back, just far enough to meet the werewolf’s eye. “Stiles,” the kid sniffed again, wiping a sleeve over his streaming face. “I’m Stiles.”

…  
...

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> I’m playing fast and loose with the timeline here.
> 
>  
> 
> 2003 nov derek would have killed paige
> 
> 2004 Kali tries to kill jennifer, assume late in the year for this story
> 
> 2005 jan hale house fire  
> …
> 
> My favorite head cannon is that Beacon Hills was just full of members of the Hale family, and the reason why the fire was not investigated was because the sheriff’s department was full of werewolves who were killed in said fire.
> 
> Also, Derek freaked when he got the text about rosemary, because I see werewolves having very acute scent-memories and associations.
> 
> I apologize for the abrupt ending.  
> \- <3 alicat54c  
> …


End file.
